Rein van der Leeuw, former director IISH, 1920-2012

Obituary

Rein van der Leeuw, director of the International Institute of Social History from 1974 until 1986, passed away on 6 September 2012.

Johan Reinhardt van der Leeuw, popularly known as “Rein”, was born in Groningen on 10 December 1920. His father was Gerardus van der Leeuw, theologian, clergyman and, shortly after World War II, minister for the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) for a brief period. Rein's father married Anna Catharina Snoek Henkemans in 1916. They had three sons, the second of which was Rein. Rein van der Leeuw studied History at the University of Groningen and got his BA in 1946, with Dutch Language and Literature and Dogmatic History as subsidiaries. In 1948 he married Agatha Adriana Janna Sauer, with whom he had four children.

He got his MA in 1949, with Early Modern History as his main subject and Sociology and Medieval History as subsidiaries. Rein van der Leeuw also obtained the first-class Diploma in Archival Studies. From 1949 to 1957, he worked as a research associate at the Dutch Institute for War Documentation (RIOD), together with his brother, A.J. van der Leeuw (1919-2003). At the RIOD, he worked under A.E. Cohen at the source publication department. Between 1957 and 1959, he was a history teacher in Amsterdam and Haarlem, lastly employed at the Karel van Mander Lyceum in Haarlem.

IISH

On 1 July 1959, Van der Leeuw got a temporary appointment at the International Institute of Social History (IISH) for the arranging of archives within the framework of the so-called Ford project. The IISH received substantial temporary funds from the Ford Foundation for the disposal of backlogs of ill-documented or non-documented archives. This project was concluded in the course of 1965. At this point in time, Van der Leeuw is characterized by Rüter (Dutch historian and then director of the IISH) as an “able historian with a broad social interest”. Early 1964 Van der Leeuw was permanently appointed as an archivist. In the letter of appointment, Rüter pointed out to Van der Leeuw that the Institute had not yet gained the status of interuniversity institute, which implied that he (like many other employees) could not (yet) be included in the Dutch Civil Pension Fund. During the years following his appointment, Van der Leeuw fought for the case concerning the inclusion of staff members in the ABP (Dutch State Employees' Pension Scheme). Van der Leeuws appointment in 1964 also included the task of the management of the archives of International organizations at the IISH. From 1965 the international archives were managed in a so-called “cabinet”, with Rein van der Leeuw as head of cabinet. In this year, Van der Leeuw attended the first International Conference of Labour and Social History (also known under the German name Internationale Tagung der HistorikerInnen der Arbeiter- und anderer sozialer Bewegungen, abbreviated as ITH) in Linz, Austria. At a later stage, he took a seat on the board of this conference. In the same period, he was also briefly active as a member of the Amsterdam city council for the Dutch Labour Party. He was installed on an interim basis on 28 April 1965, but did not return after the elections of 24 August 1966. In this same year (1966), he took a seat in the “Sports and Recreation Committee” of the city council.

Board of Directors

On 1 July 1974, Van der Leeuw was appointed managing director of the IISH, responsible for financial and organizational matters. The actual director of the Institute, Frits de Jong Edz., stayed on as general director, but was mainly preoccupied with scholarly and publication projects. De Jong resigned as of 1 January 1978. The board asked Van der Leeuw to become general director with the temporary assistance of Charles B. Timmer as assistant manager. Timmer had been head of the publication department of the Institute for years, a role he had also fulfilled under Frits de Jong. In 1978 the management was reinforced with the appointment of Fritjof Tichelman, then head of the Asia department of the IISH, as second assistant manager.

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